Working with TNA but not as a wrestler: "It's getting easier, a little bit. My first night doing production was really rough. I hadn't been around TNA, I stayed away from it and for a while, like right after I got hurt I would watch the product, I would watch as much wrestling as I could because all I thought about was getting back and how soon can I be back. Then I think it was probably 2-3 months down the road, because I spent 3 and a half months in a neck brace and sleeping in a recliner, and I just completely gave up on wrestling. I was like, 'I'm done with that.' I didn't watch the product for a while. Then I went down to TNA and I was standing in the back with Dixie and just watching all the boys get ready and going over everything, I was like, 'man, that's what I want to be doing.' It was weird seeing all the guys go do their thing and like I feel fine but I just can't. There's just no telling what could happen. Doctors said it could be one slam; it could be a thousand before my neck gives out again."

What he would do if he never wrestles again: "I've been told by doctors a million times over again now, when they see what I do, I remember my first orthopedic surgeon I guess he thought I did high school wrestling and at my 6 month mark he was like, 'if that's what you do you're fine, you can go back.' I was like, 'I don't think you know how this happened.' I showed him some videos and he was like, 'whoa, you can't do that. There's no way your body can take that.' And then every doctor I've seen so far is like there's no way, it's just not going to happen. My mom is totally supportive of it. She's like, 'if you can make it through being paralyzed, you can more than go back.' I see a good career going here in production; everything's going good. I like it. I'm learning more and I'm really happy that I have the opportunity to do it but I think wrestling-wise, that's what I want to do. I'm 23, so I still have that young fire and want to go. And that's the thing; all the older guys are like, 'man, it's not worth it.' All the older guys they want to stop wrestling and get an office job like I have now.

"I think it was like my fourth day in ICU, I was laying there and I had seen so many people. I really had not even maybe said hi to Kurt Angle, I was just intimidated by him and then my mom comes in and says, 'you have another visitor.' I was like, 'please, just send him home, do whatever with him,' and Kurt spent his own money and flew down from Pennsylvania just to see me. I had never even really talked to him, I just said hi and respected him and that was it, and he sat there and talked to me for like an hour just about how I was going to get better, how I was going to get a big push when I come back. I remember I was just laying there; I was like, 'Kurt, I'm stuck in a neck brace. This is not going to happen.' And he yelled at me like he was my dad. He was like, 'you know what? You can lay here on your ass and feel sorry for yourself, that's not going to get you back in the ring, that's not going to make you walk.' So he motivated me to get up and actually do it. I was supposed to spend like 2 weeks in the hospital and I left in 5 days. So I got out of there pretty quick. ICU was not fun, so I had to get out of there. And the food was terrible."